PingSun Leung and Matthew Loke. “Economic Impacts of Increasing Hawai`i’s Food Self-Sufficiency.” Cooperative Extension Service, Economic Issues, Dec. 2008 (EI-16). Cooperative Extension Service, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawai`i at Manoa.
David S. Battisti and Rosamond L. Naylor. “Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat.” Science, 9 January 2009 (Volume 323).
Food self-sufficiency: is it possible in Hawai`i?
Probably not, absent a return to the poi-and-fish diet of pre-contact Hawaiians (and the abandonment of the modern economic system as well). But, with a concerted effort by government, consumers, and producers, we could probably do a lot better than we’re doing now, according to an article published recently by the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa.
In it, authors PingSun Leung of CTAHR and Matthew Loke of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture note that Hawai`i’s dependence on imported food is discouragingly high. “While a definitive figure is yet to be derived, it is generally believed that most of the food we consume in Hawai`i is imported,” they write. “In comparison, the food self-sufficiency level of the New England region is estimated as 28 percent in 1997.” When looked at across the nation, imported foods account for just 7 percent (based on value) or 15 percent (based on volume) of all food consumed.
Furthermore, the recent trend has been for imports to account for an ever growing portion of Hawai`i foods. Other than beef and fresh vegetables, Leung and Loke write, “the rest of the foods all show a declining production trend during the ten-year period from 1995 to 2005. The production and consumption of beef in Hawai`i has remained stable at an average annual growth rate of 4.4 percent. Only production of fresh vegetables has outpaced its consumption by a large margin (5.8 percent versus 4.3 percent). In other words, during this ten-year period we have become more self-sufficient only in fresh vegetables.” And the statistics probably overstate the encouraging trend in fresh vegetables or the stability of locally produced beef supply, they point out in a footnote: “A small amount of vegetables are actually destined for the export market (for example, Maui onions) …. The value of beef production includes the value of calf export, which is quite substantial. Thus the actual self-sufficiency levels for these two food items are in fact less than as portrayed here.”
Hawai`i was once self-sufficient. Before western contact, Hawai`i produced enough food to support the population, which was, by most estimates, not too far below current levels. And during World War II, to support the war effort and as a consequence of severely restricted imports, thousands of acres of plantation lands were converted into truck farms, supplying both soldiers and the local population with potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and other crops.
But today, Leung and Loke say, “even though Hawai`i can conceivably grow anything that we consume, the quest to achieve 100 percent food self-sufficiency is impractical, unattainable and perhaps impossible, as it imposes too high a cost for society.”
“The reduction in transportation cost resulting from technological change in the shipping industry during the past decades and the liberalization of the global trade have led to massive concentration of production of commodities, including food, in regions where economy of scale can be captured, resulting in more efficient and profitable production,” they write.
Still, “consuming and producing more locally grown foods may decrease the ‘food miles’ involved in transporting foods and thus may conserve energy and reduce our carbon footprint.” Also, by growing and consuming more local-grown crops, risks associated with imports – harmful invasive pests or diseases – are reduced.
If the current share of local produce were doubled, they calculate, about $120 million worth of imports could be avoided. With that amount being pumped back into Hawai`i’s economy, more than 3,000 additional jobs would be created, state tax collections would rise by $8.7 million, and overall earnings of local farm-related businesses would increase some $64 million. Even a more modest substitution of 10 percent of food imports by local products would inject $3.1 billion into the state’s economy and generate at least $6 million in state tax revenues.
“One obvious question is whether the $6 million tax revenues generated from a 10 percent food import replacement strategy would be sufficient to design and run a government program to support the expansion of local production,” they write. “Value should also be assigned to other non-monetary benefits such as job creation, better environmental stewardship (e.g., keeping open space and the island landscape green and recharging the aquifer system), increased levels of food self-reliance, and land preservation….”
A Climatic Curve Ball
But even supposing Hawai`i provides incentives to farmers to increase their production of food crops, would that be enough?
Assume, for the moment, that the demand for fuel is reduced. People drive less and communities have services and jobs located where workers can reach them by bicycle, on foot, or in public transportation. Wide-scale conversion to solar water heaters has substantially cut household electrical use. Competing demands for land to be used for fuel or food have been resolved, in favor of food.
A recent article in Science suggests that global warming may drastically reduce the potential for areas in the tropics and subtropics (an area that includes Hawai`i) to grow food crops.
In the article, “Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat,” authors David Battisti of the University of Washington and Rosamond Naylor of Stanford University discuss the impacts that rising temperatures will have on crops. The outlook is bleak.
“We calculated the difference between projected and historical seasonally averaged temperatures throughout the world,” they write, basing their work on global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What they found was, “it is highly likely (greater than 90 percent chance) that growing season temperatures by the end of the 21st century will exceed even the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded from 1900 to 2006 for most of the tropics and subtropics.”
And as temperatures rise, crop yields fall: “Experimental and crop-based models for major grains in these regions show direct yield losses in the range of 2.5 to 16 percent for every 1 degree Centigrade increase in seasonal temperature…. Large additional losses are expected from sea level rise and decreased soil moisture caused by higher average temperatures.”
Any expectation that these losses will be more than made up for by gains in productivity at higher latitudes is unrealistic, they say. “Despite the general perception that agriculture in temperate latitudes will benefit from increased seasonal heat and supply food to deficit areas, even mid-latitude crops will likely suffer at very high temperatures in the absence of adaptation. Global climate change thus presents widespread risks of food insecurity.”
By the end of the century, the authors write, “the summer average temperature will exceed the hottest summer on record throughout the tropics and subtropics. Because these regions are home to about half the world’s population, the human consequences of global climate change could be enormous.” Bear in mind that the heat affects people as well as crops. In 2003, a heat wave in western Europe is believed to have caused the deaths of 52,000 people, the authors note, “one of the deadliest climate-related disasters in Western history.” When temperatures soar, even if crops do not fail, the ability of workers to harvest them is going to be impaired.
My first inclination on reading Battisti and Naylor’s report – or any report on climate forecasts, for that matter – is to look at the accompanying maps and figure out whether Hawai`i will be affected. Not surprisingly, Hawai`i shows up as a speck on the maps, and it is impossible to determine whether or not it is likely to experience the worst of the extreme temperatures predicted by the end of the century.
In another sense, though, it hardly matters. So long as Hawai`i is as dependent on imports as it is now, then what happens to food crops elsewhere will have a direct, even an amplified, effect on the islands’ food supply.
The writing is on the wall. It is past time for Hawai`i to design and implement a program not just to keep agricultural lands in agriculture, but to spur increased cultivation of crops and livestock for local markets. If the foundation is laid now, Hawai`i will be much better able to roll with the nasty punches global warming is sure to bring.
Click on link below to see a chart comparing Hawai`i food production in 1995 and 2005.
[url=%%dir[1]%%Hawaii_food_production.htm]Hawaii_food_production.htm[/url]
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 19, Number 9 March 2009
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